MwanaHabari

JF-Expert Member

BODY:
About fifty contributors of Tanzania's National Provident Fund (NPF), a parastatal social security system, are considering whether to sue Horace Kolimba, the minister of state in the presidential office, and Mustafa Mkullo, NPF director general for mismanaging 250 million Tanzanian shillings (US$ 470,000). Plaintiffs allege the sum was released contrary to NPF regulations and paid to Kolimba, the secretary general of the government party Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which was the intended beneficiary of the funds. Mkullo is alleged to have taken the decision without consulting the NPF board of directors. Sources claim that only 10 million shillings ever reached the CCM bank account.

Kolimba counterclaims that NPF released 240 million shillings ($ 450,000) to SUKITA, a trading company which is linked with CCM, in the form of a six-month loan. Until recently, SUKITA operated with special tax-exemption facilities which the CCM government granted it, but when the procedure became "uncomfortable", the company turned to NPF for a "loan" and used it to import Kenyan beer for end-of-year festivities. However, SUKITA is coming under increasing market competition and it does not appear at all certain that it will be able to repay the loan and interest due to NPF. In that case, SUKITA executive director John Kapinga is likely to find himself joining the list of suspects possibly being interrogated by a judge on their role in the affair.

I.O.N.- The fifty plaintiffs who have threatened to sue have expressed their "astonishment" that the Organization of Tanzanian Trade Unions (whose secretary general, Bruno Mpangala, is a member of the NPF board of trustees) has not seen fit to intervene in this case of misappropriation of National Provident Fund assets from members' salaries.

MwanaHabari

JF-Expert Member

About fifty contributors of Tanzania's National Provident Fund (NPF), a parastatal social security system, are considering whether to sue Horace Kolimba, the minister of state in the presidential office, and Mustafa Mkullo, NPF director general for mismanaging 250 million Tanzanian shillings (US$ 470,000). Plaintiffs allege the sum was released contrary to NPF regulations and paid to Kolimba, the secretary general of the government party Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which was the intended beneficiary of the funds. Mkullo is alleged to have taken the decision without consulting the NPF board of directors. Sources claim that only 10 million shillings ever reached the CCM bank account.

Kolimba counterclaims that NPF released 240 million shillings ($ 450,000) to SUKITA, a trading company which is linked with CCM, in the form of a six-month loan. Until recently, SUKITA operated with special tax-exemption facilities which the CCM government granted it, but when the procedure became "uncomfortable", the company turned to NPF for a "loan" and used it to import Kenyan beer for end-of-year festivities. However, SUKITA is coming under increasing market competition and it does not appear at all certain that it will be able to repay the loan and interest due to NPF. In that case, SUKITA executive director John Kapinga is likely to find himself joining the list of suspects possibly being interrogated by a judge on their role in the affair.

I.O.N.- The fifty plaintiffs who have threatened to sue have expressed their "astonishment" that the Organization of Tanzanian Trade Unions (whose secretary general, Bruno Mpangala, is a member of the NPF board of trustees) has not seen fit to intervene in this case of misappropriation of National Provident Fund assets from members' salaries.